A Rebellious Streak
by inermis
Summary: Katakuri would never, ever betray his family – he thinks so. A whispering voice inside his head likes to disagree. This is a reincarnation fic that no one expected.


"GIVE ME CHOCOLATE MOUSSE!"

There had been an accident. A simple mistake. A small human error, and a shaking, terrorized former chef – now a puddle of bones and human insides – was forced to admit that Mama wouldn't get her promised dessert.

"GIVE ME THE MOUSSE!"

Mama's eyes are wild as she chases after the non-existent delicacy. Drool covers her chin, and when she shakes her head, huge, acidic drops of saliva fly in the air. Ground and people shizzle and burn when the drool touches them. People are crying from pain, running for their lives, begging for mercy that goes unheard.

Everyone but Brûlée, who is frozen still. She just stands there, eyes wide open as Mama keeps getting closer. Katakuri turns his hand into mochi and streches forward. He reaches her mere moments before Mama grabs her. He pulls Brûlée into his arms, but when he notices that it hinders his running, he hoists her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

"Thank you! I was so scared, big brother..."

Brûlée is sobbing now, so at least she isn't catatonic anymore, but crying won't help them now.

"Shut up, you wuss! We need your powers to help everyone escape!"

Katakuri berates his clumsy, useless sibling like he usually does, but he blames himself too. He has been molly-coddling his younger siblings, especially Brûlée who lacks many innate traits of the Charlotte family. Oh, Brûlée has learned to fake merciless blood-thirstiness quite well for a thirteen-year old girl, but her cowardly self is revealed when she is forced under the slightest pressure.

Seeing one of Mama's rampages for the first time could be considered such a situation.

Katakuri chooses the largest mirror he can find and pushes Brûlée unceremoniusly into it. Before her legs have completely disappeared, somebody pushes her aside and jumps through.

"Another mousse... will be here... in five minutes."

Melange leans her palms against her knees and lowers her head to get her breathing to even out. She must have put all her prodigious running speed to use to get the message here as fast as possible.

"Melange! Don't push me aside like that, you bitch!" Brûlée screeches from the mirror.

"Shut up, ugly," Melange spats back.

Melange and Brûlée are fraternal triplets alongside their older brother Cracker. They were born during the same week and they share lilac hair colour, but otherwise they aren't alike at all. Melange's slanted eyes and sharp features are fox-like, and she is known for her nasty personality. Unlike weak Brûlée, Melange is rapidly becoming one of Mama's favourites.

Katakuri interrupts the girls' in-fighting.

"Brûlée, start evacuating people into the Mirror World. Melange, how much have you mastered your Devil Fruit ability?"

Melange sweeps sweat away from her forehead. Her expression is grim.

"Enough to pull this off. Hopefully."

Katakuri nods and runs into the fray. He uses his power to save people from getting run over, but there is little to stop Mama. He is a loyal son, and he won't ever try to hurt Mama; he shouldn't even think about it. But these people are his comrades and family, and he wants to protect them, and since she won't remember this afterwards, he thinks it is alright to slow her down by placing barricades and distractions before her. Broken walls, tree trunks and huge boulders don't do much; Mama rushes through them barely acknowledging them. Placing anything edible from homies to people's homes before her is slightly more successful endeavor.

"Kōhi kōhi no mi: AROMA THERAPY!"

Almost unbearably sweet, yet darkly delicious smell fills air. Mama slows down to sniff.

"What is this sweetness?"

"It's the chocolate mousse. It's in that direction."

Perospero, the sweet-talking liar, points towards the woods that are further away from the town. Mama doesn't hesitate to believe her eldest son, and she jumps on top of Zeus and flies towards the forest.

"MOOOUUUSSEEEEE!"

Katakuri runs after Mama. He loses the sight of her, so he follows the destruction that she has caused. This island's trees are unanimated, so it is easy to notice that she isn't moving in a straight line but zig-zagging all over the place.

It's been five minutes since Mama's tantrum started, and there are three more to go before the real dessert arrives. Thus far, there have been some injuries, some of them severe, but no fatalities. Perospero's plan is actually working.

"THIS IS NOT CHOCOLATE!"

The smell in the air is still sweet, but there's a bitter after-taste in it. Katakuri's insides freeze when he realises that Melange's concentration must have slipped for some reason.

"THIS IS COFFEE!"

Katakuri finally gets close enough to see Mama, who has stopped running and shakes in rage. There's no one else to be seen, but Melange has always been excellent at hiding herself in shadows.

Mama rises her left hand, and a small thunder storm gathers around it.

"HOW DARE..."

She slams her hand down.

"...YOU TRICK ME!"

There's lightning everywhere, and Katakuri is in hurry to grow his hand to make a shelter. When the ear-splitting thundering finally ends, mochi is over-cooked and smells charred. He lets the useless hand drop down and grows a new one.

A half of the forest is gone. There are small fires everywhere, and a smell of roasted beans lingers in the air.

Mama is using haki to hold down Melange, who had turned into liquid to survive the lightning attack. Mama squeezes her fist, and there's a cruching noise as Melange's arm breaks. Her scream reveals that she is – unfortunately – still conscious.

"Fuck you," she manages to wheeze.

"The punishment for being a naughty girl is...DEATH!"

Mama lifts Melange above her head as she opens her humongous mouth. It's obvious how she plans to kill her daughter. Katakuri crosses his hands before his chest to stop them from moving, because he has an unexplainable urge to stop Mama, but that is impossible. He is a dutiful, loyal son.

Melange's eyes are wide from pain and fear, but it seems her natural nastiness wins over, because she smiles viciously.

"Haa...haa. Just a little parting gift, mother. AROMA THERAPY!"

She starts to darken before she is completely black, and she loses her fluidity and becomes more viscous. A strong, acidic smell is all over the place, and only his fluffy scarf lets Katakuri breath normally.

"I have become the bitterest coffee there is! I hope you burn your taste buds!"

Katakuri closes his eyes, but he can't stop screams and sounds of munching and laughter ringing in his ears.

Laughter? No, there's no one laughing, it's just an old memory...

_I hope you have stomach ache, pops!_

His long, strong legs fold under him. His head is splitting and spinning as memories surface upwards like some fucked-up water fall. Faces and word phrases and fricking feelings surge in chaotically like he is inside the Philosopher's Stone but this time Ling isn't here to grab him as he is drawn into his sure-fire death, and the stupid brat is going to die with him if he won't let go doesn't he realise he isn't allowed to die because he is MINE!

He opens his eyes. Stands up. Walks away.

That girl with a scar had given him a mirror for some reason, and he uses it to stare his own reflection. When he notices purplish-red, spiky hair, his first thought is 'what a horrible dye job' before his somewhat jumbled mind tells him that it is actually his real hair colour. Whatever, he will dye it black as soon as possible, because magenta clashes horribly with violet eyes.

He checks the back of his left hand but finds no tattoos there. No Ultimate Shield either, so he really is this Katakuri guy. Or Katakuri is him, it's equivalent and all that shit.

He checks his clothes and gives himself a mental back-slap. Not bad at all, although there's an suspicious amount of leather belts, metal chains and spikes. He always thought Edward's fashion sense was akin to a bad rash – an annoying eyesore. Maybe it was more like an airborne virus, since it seems to be contagious too. The leather jacket and the fluffy scarf, however, are so stylish that he would have worn them in his first life.

He pulls down the scarf to take a look of a lower half of his face. He fingers scars on his cheeks and he remembers a time when he was just a small kid – a toddler, basically – when doctors made a surgery – without anesthesia, courtesy of Mama – to make his mouth smaller. That's one way to make someone shut up.

He shrugs off the leather jacket that carries his family's name and stomps on it. He keeps the scarf; it is warm and he isn't quite sure where he goes from now on, so it might be useful. No more hiding his handsome face, though, he promises as he puts the mirror away.

People are pouring into the forest, and based on their relieved faces the chocolate mousse has finally arrived. He walks calmly past Big Mom pirates and the family members who are recovering from the crisis that is Mama. Some look up to him – literally – for guidance, and he can't help himself as he gives some short orders. Then he mutters something about a snack time and keeps on walking. He is quite stiff, and he tries to walk in his normal swagger, but that feels odd too. It's almost like when he was getting used to Ling's body, but not quite.

He reaches the town's harbour, where the mother ship is proudly anchored. Mama has told them about creating a country someday, a place where everyone would be equal. That hasn't happened yet, so this ship has been his home for fifteen years. He was born under that flag.

Katakuri stares the ship and the flag. He awaits a reaction. He has served Mama out of filial duty, but his awakened ambition has severed those ties, and he feels nothing. No, that's the wrong word. He feels empty, like a boy who has never known a mother's love.

He turns his back to the ship. Maybe in another life.

He steals a mid-sized merchant caravel that is meant to normal sized humans. He needs to be careful not to hit his head on door frames, but he can manage for a while. If his current growth spurt continues like his physician predicted, he needs something finer than this.

First thing first, he needs to get out of here alive.

He goes to the navigator's room to check a Log Pose that is inserted on the cartography table. There are two stable needles, one of which points towards Minion Island. The third, unstable needle points towards the island of eternal lightning, Raiguoushima. That island is definitely out of question, Mama has powerful lightning attacks even without power boosts from environment. Minion is too cold for his liking, so it seems he is travelling towards the unknown.

He returns to the desk to adjust the sails and the helm. It would be impossible to do it all alone, but his Devil Fruit allows him multiple limbs that reach far. It is still frustrating and hard work, and there's a small doubt at the back of his mind whether he really can do this alone.

He enters the kitchen. When he sees the intruder, he straightens his body in alarm, hits his head on the ceiling, curses and crouches down holding his head.

Brûlée eeps when she sees him, makes an aborted escape attempt and twirles her hands in a nervous gesture before looking at him shyly.

"Hi, big brother."

He doesn't ask how she got here. He hasn't yet explored every inch of the merchant ship, but there must be somewhere a large enough mirror to fit his twig of a little sister. More important question is...

"Why are you here?"

Brûlée isn't a warrior. Even his brothers Daifuku and Oven combined aren't a match for him anymore, so if they realised that he was gone, they would send a high-ranking, adult member of the crew to bring him back to wait Mama's awakening from her sugar-overdose. Mama was very particular about being present when her kids were diciplined.

"I heard it through your mirror. Mel is dead, isn't she?" she sniffs.

Katakuri scratches his head awkwardly and sits on the kitchen table.

"Yeah. She is."

Brûlée starts to howl. She isn't a cute crier, not with her big nose and sallow skin. First huge waterworks start, then her nose goes all runny and snotty and angry red blotches appear on her face, and finally her cries turn to hiccups. All in all it looks really ugly, and since she hates being ugly and cries anyways, it is true and honest.

"I hate her. She's always so mean and we fought all the time but she is my triplet and we knew everything about each other. I hate her and I loved her and hated her and now she's gone."

Katakuri breaks. He lets out a pained guffaw that shakes his shoulders. His shoulders continue to shake and he hides his eyes behind a hand because now he is crying too and it is Brûlée's fault. All these years he has tried his best to protect his beloved siblings only to fail because of his blind loyalty to a madwoman. He keeps his sobs silent, tries to rein them, because he is confused and angry at himself, because even now he can't picture himself attacking Linlin like he had once attacked Father. He wants to protect what is his but he can't because he is too conflicted and weak. He only wants to protect his family but it is impossible because that ambition is too great and that irony makes him laugh and cry at the same time.

Katakuri dries his tears on the scarf. He moves backwards until his bottom hits a bench and his elbows lean on the kitchen table. It is uncomfortable because it is too low for him and he has to fold his legs or he kicks the wall otherwise. However, his back touches the kitchen table and he leans even further backwards so it looks like a relaxed position.

"Do you see me now? I'm not the perfect brother you claim me to be. It's a facade."

Brûlée hiccups and nods at the same time.

"I already knew that. I've watched you for a long time."

One part of him wants to roll his eyes and make a jab about stalkery little sisters. A bigger part of him is embarrassed and somewhat flattered and just a little bit happy for gentle adoration in Brûlée's eyes. He smiles, at least he tries, but his cheeks hurt from lack of practise, so it probably fails spectacularly.

"You should go. Nothing you say will make me go back there. But I'll return someday, when I'm strong enough to protect everyone."

Brûlée shakes her head.

"I'm staying here."

"It's our family. Someone has to stay and look after our siblings."

Brûlée kneels on the bench and smiles sadly at him.

"Siblings by blood, yes. But the only family I have left is you. Let me stay, please."

Katakuri is too greedy to say no.


End file.
